It’s weird. I didn’t really write anything new this year, but everything I did was new. That sounds strange, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. After all, I’m a story teller; it’s what I do now… well, most of the time. But I digress.
My year in writing started with this email from my now former agent:
“Hi Alan ~ [he misspelled my name, which probably should have been more of a sign about the relationship in the first place] I am afraid we have reached the end of the trail on GAME 7. As you know we have tried quite a number of houses — 11 in all [yep, that's it… it is entirely too few IMHO, but I deferred to his expertise; yeah, another sign I missed] — without any luck. We have also been unable to generate interest in reviewing the manuscript from many other editors who read a description of the book on our project list over the past year. As a result, we now have to remove the title from our monthly project list to make room for new titles [or ones that you might actually try to sell, I get it]. Under these circumstances, it’s only fair that you should feel free to take the book to another agent or to try to sell it directly to a publisher yourself.”
In all honesty, I had been expecting it. He’d gone too quiet, despite attempts to engage him. It was clear he had lost whatever belief he had in the book in the first place, but getting it in writing still sucked.
I had two choices (well, not really; the number of choices is incalculable, but you get it): Give up or Go forward. Give up never really had a chance. It took me 46 years to find my writing voice. It took 3 to know this is what I should have been doing all along. “Better late than never” definitely applied.
Self-publishing wasn’t so much the sordid underbelly of writing that it was when I first began, a place where big egos went to get bigger, where (more often than not) talentless people ran when others called them out on said lack of talent. It wasn’t so much “vanity” any longer; it was an option to get past the many walls of traditional publishing. (That that world is a train wreck doesn’t help either.)
On February 4, 2011, GAME 7: DEAD BALL was published via Smashwords. On February 5, 2011, I sold 2 copies. That would be slightly better than the pace I’ve maintained ever since, but the first real indication I was actually onto something came a little over a month later, on Monday, March 21, 2011, when this review appeared.
“If you like baseball and thrillers, Game 7: Dead Ball is a must read. Even those who are only so-so on the national pastime but enjoy complicated plots with well-drawn characters will find Game 7 most satisfying.”
More reviews followed, but that one really pushed me forward. So did input from other writers. “Write more” and “keep writing” was what most said. And so I did. OK, not completely; what I did was to re-edit the second book, and the third, both of which had been waiting quietly in the background for something to happen to the first.
And thus, on May 18, 2011, 7TH INNING DEATH was born to the world. It sold 3 copies the next day. Hey, like I said, slow and methodical. Not that I wasn’t pimping the heck out of both via Twitter and Facebook and every other social media outlet I could. In a world of REALLY low budgets (read: none) for advertising, that’s how it works.
I truly appreciate all the support I’ve received from the virtual world and many people I’ve “met” there. I’ve never actually met any of them, but that some are now “fans” of my work goes a long way in keeping this dream alive. The random post that someone just picked up or just finished my book is meaningful in ways I can’t describe.
That’s why on August 4, 2011, RALLY KILLER debuted on Smashwords and Kindle (2 copies sold that day.) And that’s why all three of the books are now also available in print, and why I’m writing a fourth, because this is what I do now… I write.
I’m still working hard for that “big break” or moment when things really take off. I’ve sent copies of the first book to several “names” in hope they find a minute or two to at least eye it or read a chapter (I’m talking to you Larry King, Chris Wheeler, Kevin Millar). To date, none have responded, but as I’ve been told, these things take time.
Earlier in December I went past 400 total units sold, at once a small number, but a huge one. Some would say it is 4 times what I should have expected in FOREVER. I’m not sure I really expected anything, so I’ll take it. That it came out of the inherent rejection this business delivers on a regular basis makes it more special.
My wife said to me the other day, one in which I was feeling a little down by lack of movement: “Hey, you wrote and published 3 books. Most of us can’t write anything at all. That’s really cool.” She is most wise. (She’s put up with me for 26 years so far, she has to be!)
This truly has been at the top of the list of hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It’s been a hell of a year. It only seems like a lifetime. Guess maybe that means I’m doing it right, huh?
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